When an airplane is running on the ground, other than during takeoff and landing, it is known that it is sometimes desirable, e.g. for passenger comfort or to reduce wear of the carbon brakes, to actuate only a fraction of the wheel brakes at any one time, with the braking that results from such partial actuation of the brakes being smoother than when all of the brakes are actuated together. Under such circumstances, in order to avoid some of the brakes heating up excessively relative to the others, proposals have been made to actuate different groups of brakes in alternation.
However, the successive occasions on which an airplane is braked do not always involve the same braking intensity, and as a result some groups of brakes may reach temperatures significantly different from other groups of brakes, thus reducing the overall effectiveness of braking in the event that emergency braking should require all of the wheel brakes to be actuated. In addition, with different brakes heated to different extents there is a danger that the pilot will think that the brakes or their control systems are not operating properly and that maintenance is required.
An object of the present invention is to propose a braking device that ensures controlled braking distributed over the various wheel brakes.